THE UNIVERSE IS NOT ENOUGH

Dundalk is a small township in the south-east part of Baltimore County, upon the shores of an inlet of the Chesapeake Bay. You will often hear of it euphemistically referred to as “blue-collar” and “working-class” in order to conceal its true decadence and unspeakable hideousness.

As its name suggests, Dundalk was originally settled by Irish immigrants. Good, decent people who just wanted to do well for their families. Others soon followed: Germans, Polish, Italians, Greeks, and so forth. All “salt of the earth”, hard-working folks, many of whom saved up the money they earned labouring at the local steel mill and used it to send their children to college.

As the fine immigrant families began to improve their lot and move away, another element started to invade the Dundalk area. During the period between the two World Wars, horrifically inbred “trailer trash” types from the American south and Midwest began to move in and take over the vacant mill jobs. Grotesquely ugly, very mentally deficient, and criminally inclined, these appalling people turned Dundalk into the terribly dangerous slum it is today. Things got even worse when the steel mill began to close down as the Industrial Age came to its natural end. The illegal narcotics trade, prostitution, and child pornography becoming the major commerce of Dundalk.

It is out of this latter component of barely-human grotesquery that the true Dundalk horror began.

Among the people of Dundalk exists one extended family, with Curwin being the most prominent of the several different surnames they use to cover their existence, who are quite proud of the fact that they have all been born with webbed feet. Not just an occasional deformity, but actual, completely-webbed membrane between each toe of both feet. This has become such a thing of pride for them that any girl who gives birth to a child without this trait is immediately “disowned”, and banished from the area -- due to the suspicion that she has committed what they consider the unforgivable crime of having had sexual intercourse outside of the family!

Not to imply that this bizarre mutation is simply the result of inbreeding, as many would suppose. Inbreeding indeed! Show some people the Devil himself and they would try to dismiss him as a common Dundalk scandal!

No, the members of this repugnant family show other definite traits of being amphibians in addition to the webbing: their hideous, blotchy skin, round, protruding eyes, and a horrible, nearly-hopping gait which is wholly repulsive to observe. However, the revolting rough areas on the sides of their necks just below the jaw-line appear to be rudimentary gills, suggesting that they may have some sickening relation to marine life as well.

One wonders indeed what horrible, hybrid monstrosity came forth out of the mill-polluted water and was welcomed by the citizens of Dundalk, Maryland literally with open arms -- among other things.

Nevertheless, whatever nameless horror spawned those gruesome deformities, I know now that there was something of even greater eldritch terror lurking in the Dundalk area. Something I encountered while investigating the district.

While exploring one of the many caves, which dot the shoreline of the region, I found one with a dark tunnel reaching far underground. My only light being from my small pocket flashlight, I nevertheless followed the tunnel into its dank recesses, which were dripping with dreadfully slimy substance from the nearby water and growing with oddly mutated lichens.

Then, from perhaps a couple hundred yards ahead of me, I heard movement. Something, large, very large, was in the cave. I shut off my light and noticed a strange phosphorescence ahead, and began to notice a noxious, indescribable odour.

The movement I heard can only be described as a shambling, unearthly sound, as of something propelled by shocking limbs of a type not known to this Earth -- or to any type of sane wakefulness. Then, out of the darkness of that spectral, fiend-haunted tunnel I heard the chilling, awesomely monstrous cry of the creature:

“TEKELI-LI! TEKELI-LI!”

I knew of the Shoggoths, those horrific alien servitors of certain unholy cults and ancient demonic beings. However, who or what in the Dundalk area could possibly have the power and ability to call one up, much less control the hideous thing?

I had no time to take finding out. I just had the chance to put up a minor Algolitish shield-field to keep the misshapen phantasmagorical horror from advancing towards me in the darkness, and then I escaped from the cave.

I did not wait around Dundalk after that. The way the locals looked at me was significant, and it was quite obvious that they somehow saw me as an unwelcome visitor.

As for the abominable horrors that lurk in Dundalk, it would certainly do the United States government well to take some kind of covert military action against the entire area. Unfortunately, fear of disapproval from the large voting block of hideous lower-class Americans makes that highly unlikely. Knowing this, I duly returned to the area in proper time and dealt with the hideous Shoggoth-empowered cult in my own inimitable, awesome, and absolutely peerless fashion.

*****

Miss Sheena MacGillan’s beauty is only matched by her intelligence. A tall, slender, strawberry blonde of seventeen years, with eyes the colour of most exquisite sapphires and with the fairest of skin, she had become my student and an important contact in the ongoing battle against the forces of cosmic horror.

Although Scottish by ancestry, Sheena MacGillan had grown up in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland, where her father is assigned as a member of the British Secret Service. Sheena had been inspired to establish herself as an “occult detective” in order to investigate the growing influence of the hideous extraterrestrial beings pretending to be the Celtic “gods”, fairies, and various other subversive spirits. Worship of the dreadful infernal phantasms had become shockingly rampant in neighbouring Ireland; often, but not always, in the form of the secretly-corrupt false “religions” known as Wicca and/or White Witchcraft.

Indeed, superstition was increasing in the land of Eire -- in a way which seemed to mock and belie the advances in knowledge and technology of the Twenty-First Century (Though it still had not reached the level of stupidity found in that horrid land of satanic evil known as the United States of America). To combat this, Sheena -- herself a devout Presbyterian gifted with remarkable abilities due to her pure, illustrious Caledonian heritage -- had dedicated her life and energies. She had dutifully guarded her virginity, and had trained extensively and intensely in order to hone and properly-control her powers. The young lady was deeply schooled in various forms of physical self-defence as well as in the mysterious arts of what is known to the outside world only by such terms as magic and mysticism.

With this had also come much reading; reading in the obscure, often bizarre and disturbing texts of occult lore, supposed psychical phenomena, and legendary mythologies.

Indeed, it only speaks to the seriousness of the spiritually-unholy and unhallowed situation in Ireland that Sheena MacGillan so soon received her own very first darkly dangerous and incredibly perilous case.

It all began with stories that had been circulating concerning a strange young girl in the village of Durwick, on the west coast of the troubled Irish island. The girl, who was sixteen, was named Joni O’Doyle and was apparently possessed -- possessed by a Banshee.

A decidedly unattractive young woman, Joni O’Doyle had never had any friends and had dropped out of school during Grade Seven. She was almost dwarfishly short, and the skinniness of her figure only tended to emphasise her grotesquely fat face. A black-haired child with a particularly ugly mole on her right cheek which looked more like a cross between a leprous sore and an infected wart, Joni’s odd, dimly-brown eyes seemed to constantly be in motion, shifting back and forth as if observing the passing-by of things or beings unseen by any sane human being.

But there was more to Joni O’Doyle’s madness than this -- something sinister and supernatural to a degree that it had led her undereducated, backward parents to turn her out of their home (a move fully supported by the fearful country priest who ministered to the family), this occurrence leading to the strange girl now spending most of her existence wandering and roaming through the dark peat bogs surrounding the tiny village of Durwick.

The fact of the matter was that Joni O’Doyle had seemed to have developed certain baneful powers herself; preternatural powers of levitating objects, of psychic premonition, and the ability to inflict an intense, terrible pain upon others while a faintly-shimmering, blood-red glow could be discerned surrounding her form.

Indeed, it was on the very night that Miss Sheena MacGillan set out from Belfast to travel to the fenlands surrounding Durwick that the hideous Joni O’Doyle, skipping as was her wont through the dismal constant darkness of the sickening bog, could be heard, if indeed there had been any nearby to hear, cackling and muttering to herself:

“Better than ye! Better than ye I be! Come here to be playin’ games with me, will ye, girlie? Hahaha! A bloomin’ fool ye be, ain’t ye? But ye shall come and lead to me the one I be wantin’! Hahaaa! Ye will show the way to me that bloody ol’ wizard -- blimmin‘ bloomin‘ blimmin‘ Daniel Rumanos!!”

And with this, all alone in the dismal bog, the mad, possessed girl-child known as Joni O’Doyle let out a waling cry, a baleful, howling call of death, doom, and demonic disaster -- the hideous, eldritch wail of THE BANSHEE!!

The light of the waning gibbous moon shone down eerily upon the Durwick bogs when Sheena MacGillan encountered the Banshee-possessed, mad Irish girl known as Joni O’Doyle.

“Ye be a fool then, girlie! Haha!” continued O’Doyle. “I be better than ye! Better than ye! Ye be come only to lead another to me! He! He! The Man Who Walks Between Worlds! Daniel Rumanos! Ye do be his latest girl-toy an’ all, innit!”

“How dare you speak of Doctor Rumanos that way!” returned Sheena indignantly. “He is always an absolute gentleman.”

“Oh, does that be so? Hahahaha! He must really be gettin’ old then. Maybe ye should be callin’ him Daniel Rheumatism!! Hahaha! Doccy Rheumatism!!! Heehee! Hahaha!”

Joni grew angrier at the sound of the holy rebuke. “Aye, girlie, ye would like to be havin’ some demon behind ye, then. Or some… Daemon-Star!! Haaaaa!”

Sheena MacGillan tried her best to ignore the sinful thoughts that the demonic Banshee was attempting to cause in her. Remembering the proper sacred formulae (descended, as is much of the Judeo-Christian/Islamic Tradition, from the science of the Watchers of Algol), she raised her hand and made the Sign of the Cross towards the possessed girl, saying:

“I take power over you, foul fiend, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!”

With this, the possessed teenage girl known as Joni O’Doyle howled with the hideous, baleful call of the Banshee -- a sound which, in its horrid despondency, caused the creeping sensations of despair to enter the mind, the heart, and indeed the very soul of Miss Sheena MacGillan.

However, Sheena had been trained with the appropriate preparation for such things and, calling forth the great mystical abilities of her heritage, generated a blast of magical power which streamed forth from her lovely eyes as two beams of intensely enchanted, white-and-blue supernatural light.

The rays of magical radiance hit Joni hard, and the possessed girl flew backwards into the trees with a further scream and howl of pain and anger.

“Ye be doomed, Sheena!!” shrieked Joni O’Doyle from out of the darkness. “Sheena be a doomed girlie! Sheena be -- Sheena be a doomed girlie, now-now-now-now-now! You suck! Joni O’Doyle rules!! Better than ye! Better than ye!! I be the forest dweller -- I be the forest siddhe -- I be the doom-bringer -- I be THE BANSHEE!!!”

Suddenly, Joni sprang forth again from the Cimmerian darkness of that dismal swamp, her body now surrounded with a dully-burning, phantasmagorical red light -- a dark illumination which then shot forth directly at Sheena MacGillan, filling her with excruciating pain as, at the same time, the baneful powers of the possessed Irish teen caused branches from the nearby trees to break off and fly through the air to pummel the beautiful Scots girl.

Sheena fell to the ground, collapsing in total, utter pain and anguish at the searing attack of the terrible and diabolical power of the Banshee she-fiend.

However, Sheena’s particular abilities enabled a faster recovery than the insane Joni O’Doyle could ever even imagine. As the grotesquely mad Banshee-child stood over her, Sheena lifted one of her long, silky-smooth legs in a kick, her foot smartly contacting the side of Joni’s ill-visaged head, sending the psychotically evil young girl reeling backwards as Sheena MacGillan quickly jumped up and stood, once again to valiantly face her malevolent foe.

Nevertheless, before the Banshee-possessed girl could again strike back at Sheena, Joni found herself suddenly hit from the side by an amazingly-powerful burst of blue and orange magical energy that caused her to scream and howl in yet another hideous cacophony.

“I say, did someone take my name in vain?” I stated. “Sorry I am a bit late. I did get a mentalist summons that my student was going up against a Banshee, but I was doing some spiritual counselling for the Orthodox Patriarchate of Istanbul.”

(Indeed, His All-Holiness HIERONYMUS, Hellenic Orthodox Patriarch and Archbishop of Istanbul/True Rome, is an analogue of myself, and so it is necessary that I check in from time to time concerning his/my holy and sacred calling as religious leader of the world’s Eastern-Rite Christians. I am in sooth DR. DANIEL RUMANOS, Supernatural Swashbuckler and Intergalactic Man of Mystery. I am also, as you have no doubt by now supposed, the source of the great blast of mystical power which had just struck the Banshee-infested child.)

“Are you all right, Miss MacGillan?” I said with concern to my embattled apprentice.

“Aye, Doctor Rumanos,” answered Sheena. “Glad you’re here though!”

“Quite right,” quoth I. “Now, do remember the ancient Algolitish proverb against temptation: THE UNIVERSE IS NOT ENOUGH.”

“According to as you have been instructed, Miss MacGillan?” I said, ignoring the Banshee’s bizarre attempts at insult and perverse innuendo.

“Right, Doctor!” said Sheena, and immediately broke forth the rays of wondrous white-and-blue psychical light from her eyes, creating a magic circle around the eldritch evil which was Joni O’Doyle.

The Banshee screamed and screamed again as I then raised my arms and began the ancient and holy formula of exorcism (it, once again, being in reality a form of the science of my people, the legendary Watchers of Algol):

“O Eternal God, Who hath redeemed the race of men from the captivity of the Devil, deliver Thine handmaid from all the workings of unclean spirits. Command the evil and impure spirits and demons to depart from the soul and body of Thine handmaid and not to remain nor hide in her. Let them be banished from this the creation of Thine hands in Thine own Holy Name, so that, after being cleansed from all demonic influence, she may live a Godly, just, and righteous life and may be counted worthy to receive the Holy Mysteries. For Thou art blessed and glorified now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.”

Then, with sudden, horrible quickness, Joni O’Doyle began to levitate upwards, as the power of the Banshee gave her the sinister, astoundingly-dangerous ability to rise up and above the magical circle of light that held her!!

“Creepy ol’ Rumanos! Rumanos never stop,” continued to sing the unspeakable Banshee-girl as she began to raise and hover above the mystical circle, “never never stop, such a dirty mind. Rumanos get it up for the sake of the younger kind. My my my Sh-Sheena! My Sh-Sheena! Hurricane Katrina! Blimmin bloomin’ blimmin’ school sucks! Joni O’Doyle rules!! Hahahaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

Then Sheena sent forth another powerful beam of her own magical energy directly at Joni O’Doyle, causing the latter to fall back into the circle. This enabled me to perform the important task of concentrating on and continuing the exorcism without interruption:

“O Thou Who hast rebuked all unclean spirits and by the power of Thy Word hath banished the Legion, come now upon this creature, which Thou hast fashioned in Thine own image and deliver her from the adversary that holds her in bondage, so that, receiving Thy mercy and becoming purified, she might join the ranks of Thy holy flock and be preserved as a living temple of the Holy Spirit and might receive the divine and holy Mysteries through the grace and compassion and loving kindness of Thee Who art blessed now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

“We beseech Thee, O Lord, Almighty God, Most High, untempted, peaceful King. We beseech Thee Who hath created the Heaven and the Earth, for out of Thee hath issued the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, Thou Who hath ordained that the fourfooted and irrational beasts be under subjection to man, for Thou hast subjected them. Lord, stretch out Thy mighty hand and Thy sublime and holy arm and in Thy watchful care look down upon this Thy creature and send down upon her a peaceful angel, a mighty angel, a guardian of soul and body, that will rebuke and drive away every evil and unclean demon from her, for Thou alone are Lord, Most High, almighty and blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.

“We make this great, divine, holy and awesome invocation and plea, O Devil, for thine expulsion, as well as this rebuke for thine utter annihilation, O apostate! God Who is holy, beginningless, frightful, invisible in essence, infinite in power and incomprehensible in divinity, the King of glory and Lord Almighty, He shall rebuke thee, Devil! -- He Who composed all things well by his Word from nothingness into being; He Who walketh upon the wings of the air. The Lord rebuketh thee, Devil! -- He Who calls forth the water of the sea and pours it upon the face of all the earth. Lord of Hosts is His Name. Devil: the Lord rebuketh thee! He Who is ministered to and praised by numberless heavenly orders and adored and glorified in fear by multitudes of angelic and archangelic hosts. Satan: the Lord rebuketh thee! He Who is honoured by the encircling Powers, the awesome six-winged and many-eyed Cherubim and Seraphim that cover their faces with two wings because of His inscrutable and unseen divinity and with two wings cover their feet, lest they be seared by His unutterable glory and incomprehensible majesty, and with two wings do fly and fill the heavens with their shouts of "Holy, holy, holy, Lord Sabaoth, Heaven and Earth are full of Thy Glory!" Devil: The Lord rebuketh thee! He Who cast thee down from Heaven in His authoritative power and showed thee to be an outcast to every man. Satan: The Lord rebuketh thee! He Who said to the sea, be silent, be still, and instantly it was calmed at His command. Devil: The Lord rebuketh thee! He Who made clay with His immaculate spittle and refashioned the wanting member of the man blind from birth and gave him his sight. Devil: The Lord rebuketh thee! He Who by His word restored to life the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue and snatched the son of the widow out from the mouth of death and gave him whole and sound to his own mother. Devil: The Lord rebuketh thee! The Lord Who raised Lazarus the four-days dead from the dead, undecayed, as if not having died, and unblemished to the astonishment of many. Satan: The Lord rebuketh thee! He Who destroyed the curse and lifted the flaming sword that guarded Paradise. Devil: The Lord rebuketh thee! He Who dried all tears from every face. Devil: The Lord rebuketh thee! He Who is the salvation of the world, to thy fall and the fall of all the angels under thee. Devil: The Lord rebuketh thee! He Who spoke and the curtain of the temple was torn in two, and the rocks were split and the tombs were opened and those who were dead from the ages were raised up. Devil: The Lord rebuketh thee! He Who granted life to all men. May the Lord rebuke thee, Satan! -- that is, He Who descended into Hades and opened its tombs and set free those held prisoner in it, calling them to Himself; before Whom the gatekeepers of Hades shuddered when they saw Him and, hiding themselves, vanished in the anguish of Hades. May the Lord rebuke thee, Devil!

“May the Lord rebuke thee, Satan! -- He Who is in glory in Heaven, sitting on in majesty upon the throne of glory. Devil: May the Lord rebuke thee! He Who shall come with glory upon the clouds of heaven with His holy angels to judge the living and the dead. Devil: May the Lord rebuke thee! He Who has prepared for thee unquenchable fire, the unsleeping worm and the outer darkness unto eternal punishment. Devil: May the Lord rebuke thee! For before Him all things shudder and tremble from the face of His power and the wrath of His warning upon thee is uncontainable. Satan: The Lord rebuketh thee by His frightful Name!

“Shudder, tremble, be afraid, depart, be utterly destroyed, be banished! Thee who didst fall from Heaven and together with thee all evil spirits: every evil spirit of lust, the spirit of evil, a day and nocturnal spirit, a noonday and evening spirit, a midnight spirit, an imaginative spirit, an encountering spirit, either of the dry land or of the water, or one in a forest, or among the reeds, or in trenches, or in a road or a crossroad, in lakes, or streams, in houses, or one sprinkling in the baths and chambers, or one altering the mind of man. Depart swiftly from this creature of the Creator our God! And be gone from the handmaid of God Joni, from her mind, from her soul, from her heart, from her reins, from her senses, from all her members, that she might become whole and sound and free, knowing God, her own Master and Creator of all things, He Who gathers together those who have gone astray and Who gives them the seal of salvation, so that he may be counted worthy of His immaculate, Heavenly and awesome Mysteries and be united to His true fold, dwelling in a place of pasture and nourished on the waters of repose, guided pastorally and safely by His staff unto the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. For unto Him belong all glory, honour, adoration and majesty together with the Anointed and His all-holy, good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.”

As I concluded the holy words, I looked and behind the Banshee-ridden form of poor Joni O’Doyle -- and saw that the dreadful red glow around her only seemed to be increasing, as if growing in power, as the demoniacal howling and wailing reached an even-higher level of most satanic intensity!!

The dark-red glow increased in intensity, and the baleful howl of the ungodly spirit grew louder and louder -- steadily increasing in volume until it threatened to reach what would have been without a doubt a quite unbearable level of demonic, discordant cacophony.

However, the Banshee wail then suddenly changed into the sound of what was a very human scream -- the scream of Miss Joni O’Doyle as the unspeakably dreadful and profoundly demoniacal spirit left her tortured body and descended into the darkest depths of that inter-dimensional gaol which is called Perdition. The red glow around Joni’s form then faded from sight and the pitiful young girl’s scream dropped to a sob and then to silence as she fainted on the dismally wet ground of the bog.

Thankfully, young Miss Joni O’Doyle would live, and the Banshee would now plague her no more -- but her mind, sadly, would be forever broken -- shattered into heartbreaking madness by the ghastly experiences the girl had undergone.

Nonetheless, most importantly, Ireland -- and if truth be told the rest of humanity -- had been delivered from the horrifying influence of the alien “spirit” which the Celtic legends do term a type of fairy.

“Excellent work as always, Miss MacGillan,” said I, turning to my young protégé. “Your abilities and control of the situation were indeed most impressive.”

“Do you really think so, Doctor?” Sheena answered with her own charmingly sincere mixture of humility and pride.

“Yes, absolutely. Quite excellent work, really. I am certain you will continue to do such, as you have been well-trained indeed, but remember to never be hesitant about asking for my aid when you feel it may be necessary. As for now, however, I am really going to have to be getting home soon. My wife will be wondering where I have gotten to!”

“Oh… Well, thank you, Dr. Rumanos.”

The lovely and “supernaturally” quite powerful Miss Sheena MacGillan remains as administrator and lead investigator of the Belfast Affiliate of Gargoyle’s Occult Investigations, where she continues to do an outstanding, capital job of combating the numerous Hibernian horrors of the sadly revived paganism of the Emerald Isle. I am quite proud that her ability and competence. Concerning the Land of Eire, it is a beautiful land with many good people, and I pray it will soon overcome its problems.

As for Joni O’Doyle, she is now confined to a private, state-of-the-art mental-health facility there in the city of Belfast, where the poor, sick child receives a most exceptional level of care under the watchful, expert supervision of that most eminent of psychiatrists, Dr. Jonathan Moran.

Forsooth, Joni has just recently developed a somewhat surprising new talent -- of sorts. The now harmless but still-troubled young woman has taken to scribbling what amounts to short stories, utilising the pencils and paper that the rather indulgent hospital staff kindly allow her to have. The plots of these most unusual works of fiction are, for the most part, borrowed from old horror and murder-mystery films, weirdly mixed up with the unfortunate girl’s own strange, disorderly, and ramblingly incoherent imaginings. But all of the bizarre tales feature, as their major protagonist, a really very handsome and heroic “occult private eye” character whom she has named Dan Ruman.